14 DAY TRIAL // It would appear that the long-awaited tablet which Lenovo has been working on may finally become available for purchase, although worldwide availability is still a few months away.
During the Mobile World Congress 2011 expo in Barcelona, Spain, quite a few Android tablets have been officially introduced.
Many of them were loaded with Android 3.0, otherwise known as Honeycomb, which is the most recent (and tablet-aimed) version of Google's mobile OS.
Lenovo's LePad was one of the so-called exceptions, as it runs a modified version of the Android 2.2 Froyo operating system.
We even managed to get our hands on this particular device, as one of our colleagues was on the site and even got some photos of it.
However, Lenovo did not actually say when it would get to start selling the slate, but PC World seems to have somehow acquired the answer.
According to the report, Chinese customers (as Chine is Lenovo's home market) will get it as early as next month, but the rest of the world will have to wait until June, maybe around Computex.
No doubt some will think it is a bit too long a wait, knowing that the LePad actually showed up not just during CES 2011, but CES 2010 as well.
Either way, for those interested in a reminder, it uses a 1.3 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset, 1 GB of RAM, 16 GB or 32 GB of Flash storage and a 10.1-inch screen with a resolution of 1,280 x 800 pixels.
Other specifications include a 2 megapixel webcam, WiFi, Bluetooth and 3G. It will cost between $399 and $449 and.
Hopefully, Lenovo will switch from the LeOS (Android 2.2) to Android 3.0 by the time June comes around. Considering that so many other tablets, especially a bunch of Tegra 2 ones, have already adopted the truly tablet-optimized OS, it really is in Lenovo's best interest to implement it as soon as possible.